chicken, kasha, stinky foods

(sketch by Tony Halmos, see details at bottom of this page)

Quite unexpectedly, I made a roast chicken yesterday.

Unexpected for two reasons, really: I haven't made roast chicken in quite a few years, and also because I never intended to make it yesterday. When Grocery Gateway made their delivery, however, it arrived with an extra item: a whole, uncooked chicken. I called them to let them know, and they told me to keep it with their compliments; apparently there was an order mix-up somewhere.

Since neither Jeff nor I were going to be home for dinner, I decided to cook the thing and feast on the leftovers for lunches. After consultation with my sister, I stuck it in the oven for an hour. Surely it had to be more complicated than that. Yet lo and behold, it worked! I was amazed, delighted. Hungry.

You types who are bored by cooking talk can probably stop reading here, or skip down to the poll. I've been fascinated by cooking in recent months before I had thought for a long while that I couldn't do it. And while I'm still no expert, I'm finding that it's actually kind of fun. There's something immensely satisfying about going to the market (ok, so I tend to order heavier, canned goods from Grocery Gateway), picking out fresh ingredients, then going home and cooking them for dinner.

I usually try to turn the first bit into part of my workout. Run to the market (St. Lawrence Market or the Dominion's in the same area), brisk walk back with groceries in my backpack and in (ideally) equally weighted shopping bags carried in each hand. Cab drivers idling along Front St. look at me as if I've grown two heads as I walk past laden with my purchases, layered in fleece and Gortex and only my eyes showing, while the snow howls past.

The other day I experimented with kasha (the raw buckwheat kernel stripped of its hard outer shell) with a recipe from my newest Moosewood Cookbook, with onions, mushrooms, soy sauce. Yum. I made it when Jeff wasn't home because I knew he'd hate it. "You've been cooking something stinky!" he announced when he came home that night.

Had a good practice with Allison & Jodi yesterday. We went through more of our Ad Astra concert set, plus did some more work on "Unrequited", my Eowyn song. I added some flute instrumental, Allison added some harmonies and counterpoint, we worked on the arrangement some more. We also talked about our current and upcoming songwriting projects, and Allison & Jodi helped give me an idea for a very silly but fun Lord of the Rings songwriting project, henceforward referred to as Urban Tapestry's Secret LOTR Extravaganza. Ideally, we'll be debuting this at Torcon in August, when we'll also be debuting our new CD. First I have to write it, though. :-)

POLL:

What foods do you dislike? Please rank the depth of your dislike as well. Will you eat it to be polite? Or spit it out if it's forced in your mouth? Foods I don't like but will eat if necessary: sea urchin. Hm. I'm sure there are other foods I dislike but can't think of any. Oh wait! Guinness, I really despise Guinness. Ok, so maybe that's not really a food but I stuck it in anyway to bug my friend Andy.

Links/News:

Remember I ordered the new Harry Potter book a short while back? I got an e-mail from Amazon.ca yesterday informing me that the price had DROPPED to CDN$25.80 (from $27). Yay!

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Today's Blatherpic:

Sketch of Jeff by Tony Halmos (for the scrapbook project), used with permission. Please don't copy this image without the permission of the artist, thanks.

Feb/2003 comments: Read | Post | LJ